Accounting Information For Everyone

How to Master a New Skill

Mastering new skills is not optional in today business environment. When working on a new skills or competency, you need to ask yourself two things. First is your goal attainable? There are certain limits to what you can learn. For example, you may want to be brain surgeon, but not have the eye hand coordination required. How much time and energy can you give to the project? Recognize that learning a new skill take extreme commitment. Unless your goal is attainable and you are prepared to work hard, you won’t get very far. You also make sure the skill is relevant to your career, your organization, or both. Gaining a new skill is an investment and you need to know upfront what the return will be. Self-improvement can feel overwhelming. Choose one or two skill to focus on at a time, and break that skill down into manageable goal. For example, if you are trying to become more assertive, you might focus on speaking up more often in meeting by pushing yourself to talk within a first five minutes. One of the quickest ways to learn something new, and to practice it, is to teach other how to do it. So, share what you learn with your team, your manager, and your co-worker. You can force yourself to do it by putting a teaching date on your calendar or agreeing to lead a formal training session a few month down the road. With objective like those, your learning will be much more focused and practical.